The Roots of a Reforming Conservatism

This essay is taken from the Spring 2015 issue ofModern Age, which has just been released.

A man is not primarily a witness againstsomething.
That is only incidental to the fact that he is a witnessforsomething.
—Whittaker Chambers,Witness

In recent years, conservatives have fallen into a thoroughly oppositional mind-set in American politics. We have had good reasons for doing so. The agenda of the Obama administration has frequently been moved by a political philosophy hostile to what conservatives seek to defend: ordered individual and economic liberty, cultural traditionalism, personal responsibility, civil society, religious freedom, a commitment to work, a belief in America as the last best hope of mankind. Provoked on one or more of these fronts, conservatives have reacted defensively, making our case against what we have taken to be serious mistakes. This is a necessary and appropriate response to the circumstances. But it is dangerously insufficient.

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The first step in reversing the devastating decline of the family—probably the greatest source of inequality in America—is to start expressing a clear preference, in speech, for two biological (or adoptive) parents.

Congress’s failure to kill the Export-Import Bank— “the lowest of low-hanging fruit in the sprawling tree of American political corruption”—is just the latest chapter in a long story of special-interest politics at the expense of the common good.